Each weekend for the past month, Sam Johnson has climbed into his seven-year-old Mazda and driven off on a one-man barnstorm across California on behalf of someone who may or may not run for President: Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot.

When Larry Bennett, a veteran LAPD detective, arrived at the scene of a brutal rape late last year, the images were enough to sicken even a hardened cop. "It was just a violent, bloody scene," Bennett recalled. According to police reports, a 19-year-old woman had entered a shop on Venice Boulevard near downtown to buy candy when a man inside grabbed her, stabbed her repeatedly and raped her.

Jesus Blancornelas, one of Mexico's most respected journalists, lies in a hushed intensive care unit, taking forced breaths from a respirator, struggling to recover from the bullet wounds of a botched assassination attempt by the Tijuana drug cartel. Outside, poker-faced security forces with semiautomatic weapons surround the hospital to prevent drug gunmen from returning to finish off the job.

The old house with its spacious courtyard and pointy rooftop used to be the nicest in town. Three centuries of wear and tear have turned it into a dilapidated shanty, like all the other houses in this dying river village. Yet its stature has never diminished in the eyes of the Wen family. Twelve generations of Wen children were born there, raised there, married there and expected to die there. The house is the family. The family is the house. But not for much longer. The deluge is coming.

April 19, 1998 | David Friedman, David Friedman, a contributing editor to Opinion, is an international consultant and fellow in the MIT Japan Program

Water should be an acid test for those who aspire to be governor of California. Whether the candidates are willing to build the fresh-water canal around the Sacramento Delta recommended by a state and federal task force, "Cal-Fed," would determine if they truly represent California's diverse population, or only its privileged elite. So far, there only has been silence. Contrary to popular belief, California does not have a water shortage.

Amid an uproar from Burbank Airport opponents, the Burbank City Council has voted to fire 62-year-old homemaker Margie Gee, one of the city's most hard-line representatives on the airport commission. The 3-2 vote taken after two hours of sometimes-raucous public testimony seems yet another sign that local leaders are bent on taking a softer approach to the dispute over the airport's planned expansion, despite mounting public pressure to the contrary.

Caren Gaffney would be the perfect contestant on "The Price is Right." She moves from store to store, meticulously combing the aisles and taking down prices. A head of Boston butterhead lettuce. A bottle of Advil. Car inspection. Diamond bracelet. Eyeglasses. A 50-foot black TV cable. Washing machine. It's an eclectic shopping list that comes from her employer, the U.S. government.

How expendable is "The Expendables"? That depends on who you are and why you're asking. If that sounds a little Zen-like, that's because the new action opera co-written and directed by and starring Sylvester Stallone exists in a "Twilight Zone" dimension of its own outside of normal critical time and space. In other words, if you want to see old-fashioned nonstop mayhem with stars so venerable that "The Leathernecks" (and I don't mean Marines) might be an alternative title, reviews are going to be superfluous.

Leah Tzemel was well on her way to losing another case before the Israeli Supreme Court. The judges listened tolerantly, but they clearly believed that Tzemel's Palestinian clients knew more than they admitted of their brother's attempts to blow up Jews. Spectators in the courtroom had no doubts whatsoever. "Murderers! Murderers!" screamed the mother of a boy killed in a suicide bombing late last year. And more to the immediate point: "Take away the ugly face of Leah Tzemel!"

Warning that the multiple crises confronting children have "the potential to explode our society," retired Gen. Colin L. Powell called on his fellow Americans on Monday to make an extraordinary personal commitment to serve as mentors to at-risk youth. Together with President Clinton, former presidents, 30 governors and 100 mayors participating in a conference on volunteering, Powell said that as many as 15 million young Americans need mentoring to help them overcome the adversities they face.